The Desolation of Sherlock
by drekadair
Summary: John realizes that Sherlock is not quite what he appears to be. A series of Smaug!lock oneshots.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note:** I don't generally go for AUs or crossovers, but with Benedict Cumberbatch playing Smaug and Martin Freeman playing Bilbo, I just couldn't resist this idea. So far this is taking the form of a collection of missing scenes, but only my muse knows where this will go.

**Disclaimer:** The usual stuff. Sherlock belongs to Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, and Smaug belongs to J. R. R. Tolkien. Cover image is by lollypopninja on LiveJournal.

**The Desolation of Sherlock**

**Prologue**

John Watson didn't expect Sherlock Holmes to have warm hands. He didn't usually make those kinds of snap judgments about people. His time in the Army taught him to listen to his instincts, and he found they were usually right, but his instincts didn't usually have much to say about the temperature of a man's hands. Something about Sherlock, though, made John think he ought to have cold hands. It came as surprise to John when he shook Sherlock's hands and found them warm—almost feverishly so.

At the time, John didn't think anything of it. Later, it seemed significant

* * *

There were other signs. Like Sherlock's too-warm hands, they seemed unimportant at the time. The way Sherlock could never bear to throw anything away. The way he was highly territorial, becoming snippy when John entered private spaces, like his bedroom (though he felt no compunction at invading John's own privacy). The way he exhaled forcefully when smoking a cigarette, as though the smoke was a weapon he was hurling at some invisible foe. The way his voice dropped when he was angry—really angry, not shouting-angry—into a range that seemed too deep and resonant for his body.

If Sherlock had been "normal," John would have dismissed all these things as eccentricities. As it was, Sherlock was so eccentric John hardly registered these few among the many. Looking back, he didn't blame himself for missing the clues. How could he have known? How could anyone have known?


	2. Off the Edge of the Map

John sees something he can't quite believe.

**The Desolation of Smaug**

**Chapter Two:** Off the Edge of the Map

The first time John saw Sherlock transform, he hardly saw anything at all. It happened during the "Case of the Blind Banker", as John later titled it on his blog.

In the firelit darkness of the tramway, he had given up hope. There seemed no way out: he couldn't convince Shan he wasn't Sherlock Holmes, he couldn't escape the ropes binding him hand and foot to that damn chair, and assuming Sherlock had even noticed they were missing—which John thought was unlikely—there seemed little chance he would find them. As the sand ran out—literally—on Sarah's life, John closed his eyes and gave in to despair.

Over the sound of Sarah's muffled sobs and the whisper of the sand drifting away, he heard a noise. His eyes snapped open and he squinted through the glare of fire, trying to see into the shadows. Something was moving back there, something that rustled and clinked. It wasn't a person—John wasn't sure how he knew that, but something about that sound said _inhuman_. Yet it was focused, deliberate—not the noise a feral cat makes while rummaging through the bins. Whatever it was, it sounded _big_.

And then it growled.

The noise slipped past all the rational parts of John's brain and made something inside his head short-circuit. He stopped breathing. It awakened the deeply primitive part of him that understood what it meant to cower in the night while some fanged animal, which saw him as nothing more than food, prowled around the edges of the firelight. Not even Afghanistan had made John feel this kind of fear.

Shan stopped talking. Sarah stopped whimpering. In the silence, the hiss of sand seemed unbearably loud.

Shan and her henchmen turned and ran. It came rushing out of the darkness after them. For the briefest moment, as his mind refused to accept the evidence of his eyes, John tried to see it as a train or a bus. It was as big is a train or a bus, so big its back scraped the roof of the tunnel, but had legs, and tail, and rows of gleaming scales. He caught a glimpse of two pale, glowing eyes, and an enormous, clawed paw that batted aside the ballista with contemptuous ease. Then it was gone, springing down the tunnel with a bizarre combination of catlike agility and the cold, sinuous grace of a snake. John stared after it, terrified by its alien power and yet convinced it seemed somehow familiar.

Sherlock appeared only a few minutes later, running up the tunnel from the same direction the whatever-it-was had disappeared. As he bent over the ropes that bound John's hands, John demanded, "What was that?"

Sherlock's voice was calm and mildly puzzled. "What was what?"

"That—that—_thing_." Once his hands were free he waved them wildly, trying to convey the enormity of what he'd seen.

"John, I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't seen anyone or anything down here."

"You had to have seen it!" John staggered to his feet as Sherlock moved on to Sarah's bonds. "It must have gone right past you!"

But Sherlock denied having seen anything. Sarah, once she got herself under control, also refused to admit any knowledge of the _thing_ that had chased off Shan. John just barely kept himself from grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her. He knew she had seen it—he _knew_ it! Why would she lie?

"Perhaps it was the stress of the situation," Sherlock suggested, more tactfully than John could appreciate at the moment.

John stared at the crushed remains of the ballista and knew that wasn't true. _Something_ had destroyed it, and driven off Shan and her henchmen. As a doctor and soldier, he knew perfectly well that fear could play tricks with the mind—but whatever he'd seen, it was no trick.

In fact, he was pretty sure it was a dragon.


	3. Midnight Musings

**The Desolation of Sherlock**

**Chapter Three**: Midnight Musings

Of course, dragons weren't real. John knew that. Everyone knew that. Once he calmed down a little, he understood why Sarah and Sherlock denied seeing anything in the tramway. A dragon—! Who would believe it? Obviously it wasn't _really_ a dragon—but what was it?

Underneath Sarah's near-hysterical refusal to admit she had seen anything, John sensed denial. She had obviously seen it, but couldn't allow herself to believe what she'd seen. He didn't blame her. Sometimes the not-dragon's growl stalked through the darkness of his dreams and he woke up in a cold sweat, his heart trying to climb out of his mouth through his throat. During those times, he wished he could deny it, too.

One night, the growl found it's way into one of his old Afghanistan nightmares. He woke with a strangled cry and knew there was no hope of going back to sleep. For a while he sat in bed, waiting for the adrenaline to seep out of his bloodstream. His imagination kept trying to conjure the sound of rustling scales and creaking wings out of the benign darkness of his bedroom. Eventually he gave up on controlling his imagination and wandered downstairs, where all the lights were blazing despite the ungodly hour. John didn't mind; a lot of bright lights were exactly what he needed right now.

"I said, I'll take that cup of tea now."

John stared at Sherlock, who sat cross-legged on the sofa with John's laptop balanced on his knees. Keeping up with Sherlock's bizarre mental leaps was difficult at the best of times. After a moment he remembered that he'd offered Sherlock a cup of tea sometime before he'd gone to bed, but hadn't received any reply. It wasn't the first time Sherlock had completely failed to notice John's comings and goings, let alone the passage of time.

"Right, then," John said, annoyed. A small, spiteful part of him wanted to tell Sherlock to make his own damn tea, but since he wanted a cup himself he put the kettle on instead.

As the water boiled, he leaned over Sherlock's shoulder and tried to figure out what he was working on. Most of it looked like gibberish to him, but it was familiar gibberish. "More soil analyses?"

"Mm. I've almost got all of London done."

The kettle whistled and John started the familiar ritual of making tea. He watched Sherlock out of the corner of his eye as he worked, wondering. Sherlock was amazingly observant, absolutely brilliant, and incredibly curious. Yet he had not shown the slightest interest in John's description of the _thing_ that rescued Sarah and himself. Nor had he seemed to notice that there was no other explanation for the Shan running off, or the smashed ballista. In fact, he hadn't made a single deduction while in the tramway.

But Sherlock wasn't the only one who could make deductions. Sarah might be in denial, but there was only one explanation for Sherlock's behavior: he knew something. Something he didn't want John to find out.


	4. I Stared into the Night

**The Desolation of Sherlock**

**Chapter Four: **I Stared into the Night

John watched Sherlock carefully, but couldn't find any more clues to support his hypothesis. As the months went by, he began to doubt himself. A _dragon_. It was preposterous. Impossible. Maybe Sherlock was right, and it was just the stress of the situation. Maybe he had hallucinated the whole thing.

But every time he convinced himself it was just his imagination and that maybe he should talk to his therapist about, it he would remember Shan and her henchmen running down the tunnel like the Devil himself was behind them. He would remember the shattered ballista, and the whole cycle of belief and disbelief would start all over again.

He had finally managed to convince himself to stop thinking about it at all, since clearly he could find no proof one way or the other, when Baskerville happened.

Sherlock may have been dismissive of Henry Knight's "poetry," but the moor _was_ eerie. Tromping through the forest behind Sherlock and Henry, their flashlights feeble and weak in the darkness, John felt his shoulders tighten and he wished he'd brought his gun. He had the exposed feeling of being on patrol in Afghanistan: like he had a target painted on his back.

A flash of light on a distant ridge caught John's attention. He paused, letting the others march ahead. The light blinked on, then off, then on again. Morse code?

"Sherlock!" John hissed.

But Sherlock and Henry were too far ahead to hear him. He disliked letting them out of his sight, but, realizing this could be important, he pulled out his notebook and mentally translated the blinks into letters. _ A._ Then the light disappeared, apparently for good.

John stuffed the notebook back in his pocket. The forest was full of the rustling of wind and nocturnal animals, but alarmingly empty of footsteps or voices.

"Sherlock!" John whispered again. There was no response. John hurried down the path, straining to hear Sherlock's voice.

Something rushed through the undergrowth with a deep growl. John froze, thinking, _Dragon!_ But he immediately dismissed the thought. The growl was alarming, but it was a just a growl, like any big dog might make. It didn't make him want to wet himself in fear.

Still, a big dog was frightening enough—and that was assuming it was an ordinary dog, and not some genetically-engineered nightmare. John started running, tripping over unseen roots and rocks, the beam of his flashlight bouncing off tree trunks. The ground sloped up, and then down again, and John was beginning to worry he'd missed a side-trail when he almost collided with Henry Knight.

The man was clearly hysterical. He clutched at the front of John's jacket with shaking hands. "It's here!" he gasped. "It's here—I saw it!"

"Where's Sherlock?" John demanded.

"Sherlock—?"

John grabbed Henry's shoulders and shook him. "Where is he?"

Henry looked around, bewildered, as thought expecting to see Sherlock standing next to him. "He—I think he went after it."

John's heart lurched unpleasantly in his chest. He shoved Henry unceremoniously past him. "Go back to the Land Rover and _stay there_." He didn't wait to see if Henry would obey, but raced down the path, shouting Sherlock's name.

To his left the ground dropped away suddenly into a fog-filled depression: Dewar's Hollow. The mist swirled as though someone—or something—had just passed through it, but John couldn't see anyone down there. He jogged past the entrance to the hollow and found a giant pawprint pressed into the soft earth. Beside it was the imprint from one of Sherlock's swanky shoes. Heart in his throat, he raced up the trail, Dewar's Hollow a shadowy pit on his left side.

Something enormous loomed out of the darkness in front of him. He skidded to a stop, arms flailing for balance, flashlight beam arching across the canopy overhead. _A gigantic hound!_ he thought.

But it wasn't. It was gigantic, and it had a long muzzle full of sharp teeth—currently bared at John in a hiss—but it was covered in black-and-gray scales that gleamed with patches of blue iridescence. A pair of pale blue-gray eyes, each the size of John's head, glared down at him, the pupils slitting in the bright beam of the flashlight. John had a fleeting impression of half-spread wings and a lashing tail before the thing—the dragon—jerked back out of the light. John stumbled back, tripped over something, and fell on his arse.

The impact jarred his spine and knocked the breath out of him. In the brief moment that he sat there, stunned, he heard something _crunch_ in the darkness, followed by a grunt—from Sherlock.

John scrambled to his feet. "Sherlock!"

He ran forward, heedless of the danger, but he'd only gone a dozen paces before he almost fell over his friend. Sherlock knelt in the middle of the path, apparently unharmed. John caught himself with a hand on Sherlock's shoulder.

"What—?" he began.

Sherlock lifted his head. The glare of John's flashlight caught in his eyes, and for just a moment the pupils were slitted and snakelike. John snatched his hand off Sherlock's shoulder and took a hasty step back.

"What—?" he tried again, though he had no idea what he wanted to ask.

"Ah, there you are," Sherlock said briskly. He stood up, brushed off his trousers, adjusted his scarf. "What took you so long?"

"Your eyes—"

"There's nothing wrong with my eyes," Sherlock said sharply. "Did you see the hound?"

"I heard it, but never mind about the hound, Sherlock, what about the _dragon?_"

"Dragons aren't real, John." Sherlock brushed past and walked back toward the hollow. "You're imagining things again."

"I'm not imagining things!" John said hotly. But Sherlock wasn't listening. He cast one swift look over his shoulder to make sure John was following, and then strode off down the trail.

John hurried to keep up with Sherlock's longer strides, fuming. He was not imaging things, he knew he wasn't. He'd seen a dragon, a real, honest-to-God dragon, with wings and scales and everything. There was no way Sherlock hadn't seen it. The things must have been standing right on top of him, and he just dismissed—

John stopped and stared blindly at Sherlock's retreating back. His mind felt like it was racing and yet curiously blank all at once. A distant part of him wondered if this was what Sherlock felt like when he made one of his brilliant leaps of deduction. All of the pieces fell into place.

_How could he not have noticed the ballista?_

_It must have been standing right on top of him._

_Pale, blue-gray eyes with slitted pupils._

There was a dragon. And Sherlock did know about it. Because Sherlock _was_ the dragon.


	5. HC SVNT DRACONES

**Disclaimer: **This chapter contains direct quotes from the episode "The Hounds of Baskerville," so I'd like to take this opportunity to remind the reader that, however much I wish I could beat him with a riding crop, Sherlock does not belong to me.

**The Desolation of Sherlock**

**Chapter 5: **HC SVNT DRACONES

John managed to hold his tongue all the way back to the Land Rover. A dozen questions, accusations, and demands filled his head, clamoring to be the first spoken. But when they got back to the car, Henry was there, full of exclamations and questions of his own about the hound—though Sherlock firmly denied there had been any such creature. So John held his tongue all the way back to village.

Sometime during the drive the reality of it—his flatmate was a _dragon!_—began to sink in and the clamoring faded into a sort of numb shock. By the time John joined Sherlock by the fire with a glass of beer, Henry safely tucked into bed with a sleeping pill, he'd had a chance to think things through and had realized he had no idea where to begin. He suspected that starting off a conversation with, "So I figured out you're a dragon," might not be the best idea.

Instead, he talked about Henry, and the poor man's conviction that there really was a mutant super-dog roaming the moors. In all honesty, John wasn't entirely convinced it was impossible. His flatmate was a dragon. Were genetically-engineered monsters so much harder to accept? Maybe it was a werewolf. It seemed ridiculous to believe dragons but not werewolves.

The only thing that kept John from dwelling too long on werewolves was Sherlock's insistence that there had been no hound. If Sherlock said there had been no hound, then there had been no hound.

Except now Sherlock changed his story. John stared at him, as he sat staring furiously into the fire, his face twisted and gleaming with sweat, his hands shaking, drinking—_drinking!_ John wanted to demand what was wrong with him. Why should he be afraid, when he could turn into a fire-breathing monster that could eat a dog, gigantic or not, as a snack? Why was he acting like a mutant hound was some impossible revelation, when he was impossible himself? John wanted to say, _Never mind about the hound, what about the dragon? What about _you_?_

But the words, which had clamored so loudly before, stuck on his tongue. If he spoke now, he could never go back. Sherlock would deny the truth, and then John would push until he was forced to admit it, and then everything would change. John would know Sherlock wasn't human, and Sherlock would know John knew. Things would never be the same. And John, who wasn't one for introspection or navel-gazing, was forced to admit that he wanted things to stay the same. Was Sherlock's secret too high a price for Sherlock's friendship?

So he pretended to be the old John, the John who hadn't seen dragon-Sherlock on the moor, the one who wasn't keeping any secrets. He berated Sherlock for being unreasonable. He implied Sherlock's mind had played tricks on him. He insisted gigantic hounds were impossible.

John didn't have to pretend to be bewildered by Sherlock's behavior; his behavior was bewildering, dragon or not. And when Sherlock denied their friendship, John didn't have to pretend to be angry and hurt. For their friendship, he had killed a man. For their friendship, he'd been prepared to die at the hands of Moriarty's sniper. For their friendship, he had set aside his burning need to know the truth about his friend's nature.

But Sherlock Holmes didn't have _friends_.

* * *

John expected the hurt to fade overnight, but when he climbed out of bed in the morning it was still there, a raw anger burning in his chest. He downed a cup of coffee and, feeling restless, wandered around the village. Eventually he settled down on a stone wall in the small cemetery and tried to review his notes on the case, though his mind kept wandering. He told himself he'd picked the cemetery because it was quiet, not because it was close to the inn and he was hoping Sherlock would come looking for him.

Sherlock did come looking for him, though only after John refused to reply to his texts. He came striding up the path, collar turned up, hands in his pockets, coat billowing behind him—posing, John realized. He knew he'd put his foot in it last night.

If he'd just apologized, John would have let it go. Instead, Sherlock started talking about the case, as if nothing was wrong. It was too much for John. He hopped off the wall and marched off, but Sherlock trailed after him.

"Did you get anywhere with Louise Mortimer?"

"No." If he kept to monosyllables, would Sherlock get the hint? But Sherlock never took hints.

"Too bad. Did you get any information?"

John's lips twisted, but not in a smile. "You're being funny now."

"I thought it might break the ice a bit."

"Funny doesn't suit you," John countered. "Stick to ice."

Even Sherlock couldn't miss that hint. "John—"

But John found he no longer wanted to hear Sherlock apologize. Whatever he said it would be, in some way, a lie, because how could you talk about demon dogs out of legend without also talking about dragons out of legend? He knew Sherlock wouldn't tell him the truth, and he was tired of being lied to.

"It's fine," John said. A lie of his own.

"No, wait," Sherlock said. "What happened last night—something happened to me, something I've not really experienced before."

"Yes, you said. Fear. Sherlock Holmes got scared, you said."

"No, no it was more than that, John." Sherlock reached out and grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop. John couldn't remember the last time Sherlock had touched him; the man seemed to have an allergy to human contact.

"It was doubt," Sherlock continued. "I felt doubt. I've always been able to trust my senses and the evidence of my own eyes until last night."

"You can't actually believe you saw some kind of monster," John said carefully.

"No, I _can't_ believe that. But I did see it. So the question is—_how?_"

"Yes," John said. "That is the question. How could there _possibly_ be a monstrous hound running around on the moor? Just like how could you _possibly_ have transformed into a monstrous flying reptile last night?"

Sherlock's lips parted in an almost-suppressed expression of surprise. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said. His voice was too casual.

"Right," John forced out, hardly aware of what he was saying. "Well. Good. Good luck with the case, then."

He turned and walked away, not sure if he was angrier at Sherlock for lying or at himself for forcing Sherlock into a lie when he'd promised himself he wouldn't.

"Listen, what I said before, John," Sherlock called after him, "I meant it. I don't have friends. I've just got one."

John rounded on him, his temper fraying. "If I'm you're friend, why do you keep lying to me? I want the truth Sherlock—_the truth_, or I'm leaving."

He didn't mean he would walk away again. He didn't even mean he would leave the village. Something in his face must have convinced Sherlock of the seriousness of his threat, because the other man looked away, his jaw tight. John waited, his heart beating a little too fast. He wasn't sure what he would do if Sherlock called his bluff. He wasn't sure he was bluffing at all.

Low-voiced, Sherlock said, "You know the truth already."

"I want to hear you say it."

Sherlock ran a hand through his curls, something he only did when upset or frustrated. "I am... not human." When John didn't react, he added, "I am a dragon."

John rubbed his mouth with his hand. "Right," he said. He turned, walked away, turned again, and walked back. "Okay." He stuffed his hands in his pockets, then took them out and rubbed them together briskly. "A dragon."

"A dragon, yes."

"How?"

"Well," Sherlock said slowly, "When two dragons love each other very much—"

"Yes, alright, there's no need to be like that. I just meant—I thought dragons didn't exist."

"Well, they do. We do."

John pulled in a shaky breath. Even though he'd been sure he was right, part of him had still expected Sherlock to deny it. Part of him had _wanted_ Sherlock to deny it. Until now, there'd been a chance he was wrong. He certainly didn't relish the idea that he was crazy and hallucinating things, if dragons were real, what else was real? What else was false?

His entire world was coming undone.

"I want to see," he said.

Sherlock's brows pinched together. "See what?"

"You. The... other you."

"What, now?" Sherlock swept the deserted churchyard with paranoid glance. "Someone will see."

"No, you're right. We'll go out on the moor."

"What, now?" John started toward the lot where the Land Rover was parked, and Sherlock hurried after him. "John, I don't think this is a good idea—"

"No, you're not going to talk me out of this, Sherlock."

Sherlock blew out his cheeks in a sigh. "Fine, fine. We'll go out on the moor."


	6. What Distant Deeps or Skies

**The Desolation of Sherlock**

**Chapter Six: **What Distant Deeps or Skies

A tense silence filled the Land Rover as they drove out onto moor. John kept thinking of questions he wanted to ask, and Sherlock kept shooting him sideways looks as though afraid he would ask them.

Finally, John said, "Why are so convinced there was no hound last night?"

"Because genetically-engineered superdogs don't exist."

John tapped his fingers on the armrest, trying to keep his temper. "_You_ exist."

"Brilliant deduction, John."

"Sherlock!"

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but relented. "If someone proved to you that the Sun actually went 'round the Earth, would that change your belief in gravity?"

Despite himself, John felt his lips twitch. "The Sun doesn't orbit the Earth, Sherlock."

"Yes, thank you, we've been over that. Dragons aren't real, either. _If_, John, _if_."

"Well, no, I guess it wouldn't. Gravity is gravity."

"Precisely. Just because people believe dragons don't exist, and I believe they do, doesn't mean I should believe in everything else they don't believe in."

John allowed himself a moment to work through that argument before he tried to counter it. "Alright, but if I didn't know about dragons, what else is there that I—and everyone else, for that matter—don't know about?"

Sherlock chuckled. "John, the number of things of which you are ignorant—"

"_Sherlock!_"

"Fine. You're afraid that, if dragons are real, then ghosts and vampires and the Loch Ness monster might be real as well? They're not."

"But why not? I mean, out of all the mythological creatures that aren't really mythological at all, why dragons and not Nessie?"

Sherlock shifted uncomfortably in the driver's seat. "Well..."

"You don't know, do you?"

Sherlock gave him annoyed look. "You'll just have to take my word for it."


	7. Did He smile His work to see?

**Author's Note:** My muse has become a little lost at this point and is unsure where to go from here, so it may be a little while before I update again. But have no fear! Update I shall-eventually. If you have a request, I'll be happy to give it my best shot. Also, I love kudos as much as the next writer, but what my muse really likes is reviews-so don't be a stranger!

**The Desolation of Sherlock**

**Chapter Six: **Did He smile His work to see?

"John, I don't think this is a good idea."

"You said that before. It didn't change my mind then, either."

They stood in a shallow depression not far from Dewar's Hollow, well-shielded all around by jutting outcrops of rock. Sherlock's scarf was askew, which John took as a sign of his mental state; Sherlock was always fussing over his appearance.

"No, I mean it, John."

John stopped and looked closely at Sherlock. It wasn't just his scarf: his curls were in worse disarray than usual, he kept fidgeting—Sherlock never fidgeted—and he refused to meet John's eyes. John remembered the growl and felt a tendril of fear curl around the base of his spine.

"Why isn't this a good idea?" he asked carefully.

Sherlock cleared his throat. "Since you have seen my other form—albeit only glimpses—you understand that I am rather large—and if I may say so, impressive—and quite well-armed. The most reasonable reaction of any human faced with such a sight is, of course, fear—or rather, that would be the most reasonable reaction, though I'm not sure any human—"

John held up his hand to stop the stream of words. He thought he understood what Sherlock was trying to say: he was afraid. He was afraid John would see the real him and be so frightened their friendship would end. Sherlock, being Sherlock, couldn't come right out and say it, but John tried to put as much confidence as he could into his voice when he said, "It's fine Sherlock. I trust you."

_So trust me_, he thought, but didn't say aloud.

Sherlock seemed to understand what he meant, because some of the tension left his shoulders. He gestured for John to stand back against one of the rock outcroppings, and then crossed the open space so the width of the depression lay between them.

"Just don't... panic," he said.

John wasn't sure what he expected the transformation to look like. As Sherlock's body began to twist and warp, he didn't think any amount of expectation could prepare him for this. Sherlock's clothes seemed to dissolve into his skin, leaving him naked for just a moment before he was covered in shiny black-and-gray scales. His torso and neck stretched, his legs lengthened, his nose extended into a muzzle and filled with enormous fangs. A tail grew from the base of his spine. Two batlike wings sprouted from his shoulders. A series of quiet grinding and crunching sounds accompanied the changes, as bones bent and realigned, and John flinched at the noise. Apparently it felt as unpleasant as it sounded, because partway through Sherlock made a strangled gasping noise.

In less than a minute, John's friend was gone. A dragon sat in his place.

John took a few deep breaths and tried to calm his racing heart. He knew the dragon was still Sherlock, but it was so big, and its claws looked so sharp, that he had to fight the almost overwhelming desire to either run away or curl up on the ground and have a nice fit of hysterics.

The dragon that was Sherlock folded its wings neatly on its back and curled its tail around its front paws. It looked remarkably like an enormous cat. It also, somehow, still looked remarkably like Sherlock. Most of its scales were the same deep black of Sherlock's hair, but they faded to gunmetal-gray on its underbelly. It had markings on its back, paws, tail, and face: patches of deep iridescent blue that broke up its otherwise monochrome pattern. It was frightening the way a tiger or polar bear was frightening—but, like a tiger, it was beautiful and mesmerizing.

John swallowed a couple of times and managed to say, "Can you talk like this?"

"Yes, of course."

Despite himself, John jumped. The voice was Sherlock's, right down to the faint note of scorn, just... bigger. Somehow, the familiarity of the voice, even coming from such a bizarre source, allowed John to relax a little. He took a few hesitant steps forward, still intimidated by Sherlock's size. He wasn't as big as John had first thought, when he'd seen him in the tramway, but he was still bigger than the Land Rover. He could easily flatten John with a single paw, or swallow him whole.

John tried to put that image out of his mind.

Sherlock crouched down so one of his dinner plate-sized eyes was level with John's head. It was the same color as Sherlock's human eyes, just bigger and with a slitted pupil. Cautiously, because Sherlock didn't much like being touched even when he was human, John reached out and touched the raised ridge of scales that overshadowed that blue-gray eye. Sherlock's skin was warm, almost hot, under John's hand, the scales supple yet hard. He blinked at John's touch, and John caught a glimpse of a nictitating membrane sliding under his eyelid.

"O-kay," John said slowly, taking his hand away. "Can you turn back now?"

"You should stand back."

John did, and the dragon transformed again, shrinking and shortening until he was Sherlock again. Unable to resist, John stepped a little closer than he should have to peer up into the other man's face. Aside from his slitted pupils, there was nothing to show Sherlock had been sporting a set of fangs just a few moments ago. Even his clothes had re-formed perfectly.

Sherlock jerked back irritably. "Don't look at me like that," he snapped.

"Like what?"

"Like I'm some sort of... specimen."

"Oh! Sorry."

Sherlock adjusted his scarf self-consciously. "You... aren't frightened?" He sounded unsure, which was not a sound John was used to hearing from him.

"No," John lied.

Then he stopped and looked, really looked, at Sherlock. He looked unconcerned, but a little _too_ unconcerned. He wouldn't meet John's eyes, and his shoulders were hunched defensively. John realized he must have never shown anyone his dragon-self before. No wonder he'd been so afraid John would panic. But he'd shown John anyway, because...

Because they were friends.

So John took a deep breath and said, "No, I'm not frightened," and that time he meant it.


	8. Flying is Just Like Falling

**Author's Note**: My muse was much encouraged by everyone's suggestions, but real life got in the way of writing so it took a while to get this finished. This chapter (and the next) are for StArBarD.

("But initially, he wanted to be a pirate.")

"_Remember the Code, John!"_

"_Sherlock, they're more like guidelines, anyway."_

**The Desolation of Sherlock**

**Chapter Eight**: Flying is Just Like Falling

_Early April, 4:00 a.m._

Sherlock never made tea. The one time he'd made John coffee, he'd drugged it. Well, the sugar hadn't actually been drugged, but Sherlock hadn't known that when he'd put it in John's coffee. So John was a little wary when Sherlock perched lightly on the arm of his chair, like a rather lanky cat, and offered him a mug of tea.

Perched _lightly_, because if he actually tried to sit on the arm it would probably break. They were waiting in a corner of the Ridling Thorpe police station, and the chairs were not exactly top-quality. John was pretty sure the one he was sitting in was almost as old as he was, and significantly more battered—more aromatic, too.

John had claimed the chairs, and the corner, out of a strong instinct for self-preservation. Giddy with his post-case high, Sherlock had become increasingly impatient with the Ridling Thorpe police's insistence that he remain at the station for questions and paperwork. The poor D.I. Sherlock had indirectly roused out of bed had never heard of the famous Sherlock Holmes and was uninterested in accommodating the "consulting detective's" eccentricities. After a rather cutting deduction, and a frightening moment when John wasn't sure whether the D.I. was going to threaten Sherlock with his cuffs or his gun, John had grabbed his flatmate by the elbow and steered him out of harm's way.

"What?" Sherlock had demanded.

John had pointed to the chair. "Sit down and shut up," he'd ordered. "Or I'll shoot you myself."

John wasn't at his best at three in the morning, and something in his face must have conveyed that because Sherlock had folded himself petulantly into the ancient chair. With a sigh, John had dropped into the one next to him.

He'd meant to keep an eye on Sherlock, to make sure he didn't try to slip back into the interrogation room, but apparently he'd dozed off, because now Sherlock was offering him a cup of tea.

"What's in it?" John asked suspiciously. It had been a long night, and the tea looked good.

"Tea," Sherlock said, in a hurt tone that could have been genuine but probably wasn't. "Milk." He paused. "No sugar."

A joke. John's suspicions deepened. "What'd you make me tea for?"

"It's been a long night," Sherlock said. "I thought you might need a restorative."

"I don't see you drinking any."

Sherlock brought the mug to his lips and took a long swallow. He offered the cup to John again, with a faint grimace. "It's not very _good_ tea, I'm afraid."

John took the mug. Sherlock was right: it wasn't very good. But it was tea and it was hot and that was about all John really needed right now. It had been a very long night.

"How we got here," he said, after he'd downed half the tea. "That was actually kind of fun. But can we take the train back?"

* * *

_Early April, 12:15 a.m._

"John!"

John's laptop flew out of his lap as John himself jolted awake, heart pounding and limbs jerking in shock. Sherlock, crouched directly in front of him, managed to catch John's laptop and avoid a flailing leg without appearing to make any effort at all.

"Dammit, Sherlock! What—"

"No time, John!" Sherlock said. He set the laptop on the table and gestured impatiently. His eyes were glowing with excitement. "We're going to Ridling Thorpe."

"Ridling Thorpe? It's—" John checked his watch. "Twelve-sixteen in the morning!"

Sherlock had his phone out. "Yes, and if we catch the next train—"

John stood up and tried to stretch the kinks out of his back; he hadn't intended to doze off in the armchair. "Sherlock," he began, trying to be reasonable. "It's late. Early, actually. I've got to go in to work tomorrow—today. Can't Ridling Thorpe wait until—"

"It can't wait, a man's life depends on us reaching Ridling Thorpe as soon as possible. Remember the code, John!"

John shook his head. "You solved that yesterday—I mean, the day before yesterday."

"I deciphered them, I figured out what they _said_—but not what they _meant_."

"I thought you figured that out, too. You told Cubitt his wife was being stalked and he should call the police."

"It's not the stalker Cubitt has to worry about. Dammit! There's no trains straight to Ridling Thorpe, it'll take _hours_ to get there. We'll have to hire a cab—" Sherlock stopped in mid-pace. "Unless..."

"Have you tried calling the Ridling Thorpe police?"

"They won't listen to me," Sherlock said, and added absently, "Idiots." He eyed John in a speculative way. John found it unnerving.

"What about Lestrade? He could put in a word with the locals."

"Not answering his phone. I have an idea, though."

"I'm not going to like this, am I?" John asked.

"You'll have to dress warm," Sherlock said, ignoring him. "And I think we'll need some rope."

* * *

_Early April, 12:30 a.m._

John hadn't even known there was access to the roof of their building, but it turned out there was, and Sherlock knew about it. John followed his friend onto the flat roof, hunching his shoulders against the cold, wet air that immediately hit him, and tried again to wrap his head around the insane plan Sherlock had concocted.

"Let me get this straight," he said. "You're going to turn into a dragon, and I'm going to climb on your back, and then we're going to _fly_ to Ridling Thorpe."

"Precisely."

"That's insane!"

"It's the only possible way we'll get there in time. We may already be too late." Sherlock dropped the tangle of rope he'd been carrying and tried to sort out all the loops and twists. "Are you any good with knots?"

John tried a different tact. "What if someone sees us?"

"I'll fly at an appropriate altitude. High enough to avoid casual skygazers, low enough to avoid radar."

"You've done this before."

"Yes." Sherlock paused, looked up at John. "But never with a passenger." When John only stared back at him, he looked frustrated. "If you won't come—"

"I'll come," John said quickly. "It's just—this is insane!"

"Well—maybe a bit," Sherlock admitted. "You'd best stand back."

John did, and Sherlock began to transform into his other, scalier form. His clothes faded away first, leaving him briefly naked. John looked away quickly; it was inevitable that two flatmates would see more of each other than was strictly appropriate, especially when one of them had all the modesty of a cat, but John still didn't feel comfortable staring at at all that bare skin. He looked back quickly, though, as scales covered the skin like the world's most detailed tattoo made 3-d.

The scales stretched and grew with the body underneath them, as Sherlock's human form twisted into his dragon form. Like the first time John had seen him transform, Sherlock gasped several times, apparently in pain. John flinched in sympathy, imagining from the crunching and grinding noises the transformation produced just how unpleasant the process must be.

Unpleasant, but fast: only a minute or two later, a large black-and-gray dragon stood on the roof of John's home, stretching his wings a little. John picked up the coil of rope from between Sherlock's clawed paws and got to work.

Rigging a harness for a dragon was a little more difficult than Sherlock had made it sound. John started with the idea of a dog harness, but Sherlock's snakelike flexibility and extra set of limbs forced him to make a few alterations. Sherlock himself was impatient, but surprisingly cooperative. The only bad moment came when John accidentally stepped on the tip of his tail. Sherlock hissed violently and snapped out his wings, and John almost screamed like a little girl. As his pulse edged out of heart-attack territory, he admitted to himself that maybe he wasn't as calm about his flatmate being a dragon as he thought he was.

"Hurry up," Sherlock rumbled. "We're running out of time."

"I'm just about finished," John said. He tugged on a few of the ropes stretched across Sherlock's chest, testing the knots. "Alright. I need you to come down here so I can get up. And I think you'll need to raise this wing a bit."

Sherlock crouched like a cat preparing to pounce on a mouse, and John tried not to think about the fact that he was the perfect fit for a Sherlock-sized mouse. He planted his foot on Sherlock's folded elbow, grabbed handful of harness, and swung his other leg onto Sherlock's shoulder, taking care not to kick the wing joint. He was immediately glad for the harness, because Sherlock's smooth scales gave him absolutely nothing to hold on to. He struggled to settle to find a position that wouldn't impair the movement of Sherlock's wings, but wouldn't lead to him falling off, either—a process made harder by the series of bony ridges that ran down Sherlock's spine and seemed to poke him in sensitive places no matter how he sat.

Then Sherlock stood and arched his spine in a long, undulating ripple that started at his head and ran all the way to the tip of his tail. John yelped and threw himself flat against Sherlock's neck, clutching at ropes and scales to keep from being thrown off.

"Wait!" he yelled, briefly panicked. He had a sickening vision of Sherlock leaping off the roof and himself immediately falling from Sherlock's back. "I'm not strapped in yet."

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Sherlock snapped. John could feel the vibrations of Sherlock's speech where his legs pressed against Sherlock's shoulder blades.

"If you'd just hold still..." John muttered. He'd made a harness for himself, too, and now he tied it very, very securely to Sherlock's harness, thankful that knots were one of the useful skill he'd picked up in the army. He patted the back of Sherlock's neck, though he wasn't sure how much Sherlock could feel through his scales. "That's it. Let's go!"

There was no warning. Sherlock made one short bound to the edge of the roof and then threw himself into the air. The leathery wings folded behind John snapped open with a sound like someone shaking out an enormous sheet, but instead of rising they were falling, falling toward the street below and the people and taxis who were utterly oblivious to the large dragon and terrified doctor who were about to crash into them. John's stomach plastered itself against the top of his ribcage and he clutched at Sherlock's back with adrenaline-fueled strength, too full of vertigo to scream even though his terror filled his throat and threatened to cut off his air.

Just when John thought they _had_ to crash into the house opposite 221, Sherlock twisted his body and beat his wings, and suddenly they were rising, each stroke of Sherlock's wings driving them higher and higher into the cold, damp London air, defying gravity with contemptuous ease. There was a confused moment as John's stomach resisted the rapid directional change and he felt the almost-forgotten sensation of roller-coaster nausea, but then it was gone and the scream lodged in John's chest transformed into a whoop of delight.

They rose above the rooftops and kept climbing. At first John could make out familiar landmarks—the bright ribbon of Marylebone Road, the dark blotch of Regent's Park—but Sherlock picked up speed and altitude and the chaotic streets of London dissolved into nothing more than a tangle of light.

It wasn't that Sherlock flew too high for John to make out details; he flew too _fast_. They were easily going motorway speeds—faster, even. The cold air whipped at John's face and forced tears from his eyes. He tried to watch the ground below as long as he could, but his nose and lips quickly became numb and he finally gave up on sight-seeing. He leaned forward and pressed his face against Sherlock's back; the heat radiating through his scales felt wonderful against John's frozen skin. Wherever his body touched Sherlock's he felt warm, but everywhere else quickly lost all feeling, despite his many layers of clothing.

Sometimes he lifted his head and squinted through the haze of involuntary tears at the dark land slipping away beneath them. There were fewer lights now, away from London, but sometimes they passed over the bright lines of motorways or the glowing clots of towns. The roller-coaster excitement had long since worn off, and John wished desperately for the journey to be over.

Eventually, he realized they were slowing and dropping, and lifted his head to look at the ground below. It was almost entirely dark, only a few scattered lights showing the locations of a handful of houses.

Sherlock banked, circled around one such lonely cluster of lights, and stooped suddenly into a dive. John was too cold and exhausted to do more than just think about screaming. He felt himself sliding slowly down Sherlock's neck and struggled to make his frozen hands grasp at the ropes. Then Sherlock cupped his wings to stop his descent and John clutched frantically at the harness as the roller coaster ride transformed into something more closely resembling a mechanical bull: Sherlock's body tipped back, then forward, then forward _again_ as all four paws finally touched the ground.

"John," Sherlock rumbled. "_John_. Are you alright?"

John realized he was lying flat against Sherlock's back, numb inside and out. Sherlock had twisted his impossibly long serpentine neck and was staring at John with enormous, mildly concerned blue eyes. John had the feeling this wasn't the first time Sherlock had asked him.

Since he didn't know how to answer the question, he said, "Where are we?"

"Ridling Thorpe Manor. Now get down! We may still have time—but only if we hurry."

"Right." John sat up and tugged at the knots across his chest, to no avail. In his fear of falling he'd pulled the knots too tight, and his cold-clumsy fingers could only pluck helplessly at them. "It's no good," he said finally. "My hands are frozen."

"Hold on," Sherlock said. "I'll change back."

"Wait, Sherlock, how—"

Too late. John could feel bones and muscles twisting and warping beneath his legs. He wasn't sure what to do; there wasn't enough slack in the ropes for him to get off Sherlock's back. The question was settled for him when Sherlock's wings disappeared. Sherlock had shrunk enough to loosen the harness around him, and slid off his back—dragging Sherlock down with him.

Which was how John wound up with a lapful of scaly Sherlock—which immediately became a lapful of naked Sherlock. John hastily turned his face away and frantically tried to figure out where to put his hands. Yes, he and Sherlock were much closer than most flatmates, and yes, he was a doctor, but this was a little beyond his comfort zone.

Sherlock, however, seemed unfazed. Once his clothes reappeared—much to John's relief—he untangled himself from his now-oversized harness and started on the knots around John. A few moments later and John shrugged off the last bit of rope. He stamped his feet against the ground in an attempt to regain feeling, and opened his mouth to ask Sherlock precisely what they were doing here.

That was when they heard the gunshot.

* * *

_Early April, 4:30 a.m._

They took a cab back to London, which was far more expensive than a train but also far more convenient. It was also slower than a dragon, but far more comfortable. John dozed off for a while, and woke to find he'd been using Sherlock's shoulder as a pillow. He sat up quickly and said, "Sorry."

"Hm?" Sherlock glanced at him, then went back to staring out the window. "Oh."

John smiled at this typical response and rubbed his neck; Sherlock was too bony to make a very good pillow. He looked out his own window for a while, feeling older than he was; the night had left him with a lot of aches and bruises. Eventually, he checked that the little window between them and cabbie was shut, and asked, "Do you fly often?"

Sherlock was silent, and John thought he wouldn't answer. But then he said, "No. It's too dangerous: someone might see me. Flying is occasionally useful," he added, "but generally I prefer cabs."

John remembered the first, adrenaline-filled dive from the roof of 221, and the thrilling ascent that had followed it. He remembered the secondhand ecstasy of muscle and sinew overcoming the tedious drag of gravity. He remembered the vertiginous freedom of flying above London, of seeing wide streets and tall buildings spread out beneath him as unreal as lines on a map.

Then he looked around at the little metal-and-glass box of the cab, the slightly sticky vinyl upholstery, and the crumpled gum wrapper lying on the floor, and wondered, How could you ever prefer _this_ to _that?_


	9. Flying is Just Like Falling: Coda

**Author's Note**: A companion to the previous chapter. Because I just can't leave the Fall alone.

**The Desolation of Sherlock**

**Chapter Nine**: Flying is Just Like Falling: Coda

_June_

When the early-morning light started working its gray fingers through the drapes, John was sitting in the armchair, holding up his head with his hands. He slumped with the weariness of someone who has not woken up early, but stayed up very late: the weariness of someone who has just lost his best friend.

Two very different memories chased each other around his mind until he was exhausted by their constant clamoring; but each only seemed to egg the other on, so as John's weariness increased his chances of sleep lessened. He thought a cup of tea might help, but he was too tired to get up and make one. If only Sherlock were here... but Sherlock never made tea.

Except that one time, in the dingy Ridling Thorpe police station, when he _had_ made John tea. John kept circling back to the memory of that night, of flying on Sherlock's back across England and seeing windows and streetlights laid out beneath him like inverted constellations: the memory of terrifying freefall off the roof of 221, a victim of gravity until Sherlock's wings caught them.

And the other memory, rising up beneath that older, happier one: a memory sharp as cracked bone, bright a fresh blood.

Another roof. Another freefall. Sherlock dropping like a stone, his coat billowing around him like wings—like the wings he possessed but did not use.

John remembered the _snap_ as Sherlock's wings spread out and overcame gravity. He remembered the _snap_ as Sherlock's body surrendered to gravity and struck the pavement.

A victim of gravity. A victim of Moriarty.

A victim of himself. Because why would Sherlock fall, when he could fly?

Why would have _this_, when he could have _that_?


End file.
